2016 ELECTION/INTELLIGENCE/RUSSIA/TRUMP PEOPLE: “The Justice Department appointed a special counsel Wednesday [5-17-17] to investigate possible coordination between President Trump’s associates and Russian officials — a clear signal to the White House that federal investigators will aggressively pursue the matter despite the president’s insistence that there was no ‘collusion’ with the Kremlin.
Robert S. Mueller III, a former prosecutor who served as the FBI director from 2001 to 2013, has agreed to take over the investigation as a special counsel, Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein announced. The move marks a concession by the Trump administration to Democratic demands for the investigation to be run independently of the Justice Department. Calls for a special counsel intensified after Trump fired FBI Director James B. Comey last week.”
-Devlin Barrett, Sari Horwitz, and Matt Zapotosky, “Deputy attorney general appoints special counsel to oversee probe of Russian interference in election,” The Washington Post online, May 18, 2017 8:13am